Douge de bordeaux (bitches occasionally fighting )

Hi all I am the owner of two beautiful douge de bordeaux, they are both bitches and rescue dogs, the old girl is fine at times with the young one who is only two, but then suddenly turns and has done some damage to the younger one..they eat together and the majority of the time they get on great...they have only been together for 2 weeks now, will the nasty fighting stop as you can imagine with the breed they can really hurt each other, when we are out they walk and play together no problem. ....... advise required as don't want to get rid of either .....

have you contacted the rescue for help?

id look at what triggers the attacks. there has to be something going on for it to be happening that maybe you arent noticing. how old is your "old" one? it may be that she is getting fed up of the younger one wanting to play, or it may just be a space thing.

try doing separate things with them. maybe feed them separately or do they have their own spaces i.e. a crate that they can get away to if they have had enough?

as the owner of mastiffs , best advice i can give and you aren`t going to like it , is hand the younger one back to the rescue she came from , this will only get worse , you could ultimately end up with a dead dog , i`m surprised a rescue allowed this knowing you already had a bordeaux girl already living with you , it`s never advised to keep these type of breeds together as the same sex , with bitches things can escalate very quickly and they rarely can ever get on again.

I would also look at rehoming (sorry) unless you can keep them separate.
As you have found, bitches who fall out can get very nasty.
If you want to give it longer, to see if they settle down, please don`t leave them together unsupervised.

i`m assuming the older girl has been with the OP longer , as nothing has been mentioned , with problems taking place two weeks into this , i can promise , it will escalate i can`t see any reason to let this go on any longer
of course we all love our dogs , but safety of them always has to be paramount , unfortunately this is something that won`t fix , i`ve known of people that have tried to do this when their mastiff bitches have fought [which is why i`ve never kept bitches of my breed together] it`s always ended in tragedy with either dogs very poorly at the vets , or a dead dog

Hi, as already advised, I'd be extremely careful here (but you know that, right? ). It may well be better to seriously consider rehoming one (when did you get them?).

However, as you've said that you dont' want to rehome, then what I'd suggest is that you call in a reputable behaviourist (they MUST be reputable, don't find one in the yellow pages or anything like that. Try here: www.apbc.org.uk ).

It may be that there is some rescource guarding going on (i.e. one dog may see you as the resource) and if so it may possibly be able to be turned around with behaviour modification after an assessment of environment, owners, dogs etc. However a good behaviourist will also tell you honestly if the situation is likely to cause harm or if it is unlikely that the dogs will ever be able to relax together.

So I think you may have to accept that one may need to be rehomed but check it out first and get professional help

Out of interest, how do you know they are ok together when alone? have you videoed them?

Wys
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